“You don’t qualify for a transplant, but you’ll die without one.”
“Thank you for being honest,” Riley said. “Now I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
She turned away from her mother, facing the large glass wall at the end of her room, and closed her eyes. She had had enough of doctors for one day.
“I’m so sorry,” she heard her mother say. “I think this whole situation is really starting to hit home for her.”
“That’s quite all right, Ms. Willow. She’s scared and angry. Most of us are when we’re facing death. No one likes to feel helpless. No one wants to just lay down and die.”
Riley heard her mother begin to cry. She wished they would go away, but she didn’t want to upset her mother any more than she already had. She was just so angry. Angry with Quinn for not being there. Angry with her mother for crying. Angry with the nurses for pretending everything was going to be okay. Angry with her heart. That stupid, wasted heart that had haunted her every day of her entire life.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Quinn was relieved to learn that Aimee knew exactly where the butterflies went each night and that she had turned the ship in that direction as soon as she’d heard Quinn’s story. Now Meelie was attempting to calm Pidge down while Aimee stood at the captain’s wheel. Quinn sat alone, scanning the horizon for the island Aimee had described. She was trying not to give in to hopelessness, but she was beginning to lose faith in her ability to save Riley. For all she knew, Riley was already gone, and her mother was collapsing with no one there to lean on. Quinn was the rock. She was the strong one. And she’d abandon her family for a fool’s quest.
To make matters worse, Aimee had explained more about the effects of moving between her home and the other realm. Each time Quinn returned to the other realm, memories of her existence on Earth would disappear. The first memories to fade were the most personal, which made the effects hard for people to notice. Some even dismissed the forgetfulness as normal. However, the more a person traveled back and forth, the more of them vanished. Eventually, the only thing most loved ones would have left was the vague recollection of a name, perhaps one that had been considered for a new baby and then forgotten, an almost child.
The moons had all but disappeared into the sea; the sky was clear enough for Quinn to see several miles in every direction. Waves tumbled over one another in the wind, filling the water with jade-colored foam. If the other realm had a sun, Quinn thought, the surface would look like a vast field of precious green stones. But because she could see no sun, there was only the distance between her and Riley. She and Meelie had searched all night only to find themselves in the middle of an ocean so immense that even Aimee, afloat for three centuries, hadn’t charted the entire thing.
“There!” Aimee shouted.
“Where?” Quinn followed Aimee’s hand, straining to see what had caught her attention.
“I see them,” Meelie shouted, “portside off the bow!”
Quinn ran to Meelie and followed her gaze. Far off, just above the horizon, a patch of sky shimmered and seemed to move very slowly across the front of the ship.
“That’s just a mirage,” she mumbled, slumping down onto the deck.
“Get up, bunny. Use your head. That’s no mirage. You have to have sunlight for all that.”
Quinn turned the words over in her head. Meelie was right. And if the shimmering cloud was not a mirage, then something really was moving up ahead. Had Aimee found the butterflies already?
“Mind yourselves!” Aimee hollered. “You’ll want to grab hold and button down!”
Quinn peered over the side of the ship to see swells slapping at the wood. The closer they got to the mysterious cloud, the larger the waves grew. Ocean spray was already dampening her hair and jacket. Any other time, Quinn might have been terrified, but she was too focused on getting back to Riley to dwell on the heavy pitching and swaying of the ship. Aimee, for her part, looked as serene and ethereal as she had the day Quinn first met her.
Meelie rushed to tie Pidge to the center mast, then scrambled up the steps to Aimee. Quinn couldn’t help but notice Meelie’s white-knuckled fists. From the waist up, she was the epitome of strength, yet Quinn noticed her legs trembling the way Riley’s did when she sat before a new slide for the first time. The line between cowardice and courage, Quinn thought, is crossed in a single step. When the time came, would her feet fall forward or back? She couldn’t be sure, but she hoped—for Riley’s sake—that she wouldn’t hesitate.
“Hard to port!” Aimee bellowed.
Quinn was jolted from her thoughts just in time to shield her head with her hands before careening across the deck, narrowly avoiding a panicked Pidge clawing at the base of the mast and tugging hard on the rope that bound her.
“A little more warning!” Quinn shouted, once her words had returned to her.
“All these shoals might as well be a slalom,” Meelie huffed, pulling herself up.
“What on earth is a slalom?” Aimee asked, confusion overtaking her brow.
“A type of downhill skiing, if I recall.”
“Skiing?”
“Look out!” Quinn interjected as the stern crashed into a cresting wave.
Water blanketed the deck, sending Pidge further into a frenzy. Quinn, who was sopping wet, wiped her eyes and began making her way up to Meelie and Aimee, who had managed to stay dry thus far.
“Won’t be long, now,” Aimee assured them.
“How can you be sure?” Quinn asked. “I don’t see any island nearby.”
“When are you going to learn? This place isn’t like your home. Don’t just look at what’s in front of you; see what’s really there.”
“What does that even mean?” Quinn snapped. She was in no mood for riddles. She’d had enough of the other realm. “I just want to get home to my sister before—”
Meelie tried to embrace Quinn, but Quinn pushed her away.
“Look, I really appreciate you helping me, but Riley is dying, and a hug won’t save her! Nothing can.”
“You can’t let go of hope, bunny.”
“Don’t talk to me about hope. Your sister had hope. Every day for the rest of her life, she looked out into an ocean just like this one and hoped. Do you know what she got for all her hope? Nothing.”
Meelie stared at her. Quinn stared back, but she couldn’t look into Meelie’s eyes, red and glistening with sorrow. She stormed back down to the lower deck. She was already drenched anyway. At least there she could be alone.
“Meelie—” Aimee started.
“She’s not wrong,” Meelie interrupted. “Almost eighty years I’ve been waiting to hear those words. Sure didn’t figure she’d be the one to say them, though.”
“Quinn certainly is spirited.”
“Got to give her credit for that. How many would have given up already? How many would have stared off that cliff and never jumped?”
Quinn listened from the deck below, her back to the women so they couldn’t see her own eyes filling with tears.
“And still so young,” Aimee continued.
“That one? Applesauce. Look at her. Why, she never had a chance in the world. Young? That ended the day her sister was born.”
“You could say the same about most the people here, I guess.”
“At least she won’t be alone in her grief.”
“If she stays.”
“What do you mean, if she stays?”
“I’m not sure she’ll risk leaving Riley again.”
“Aimee, if she doesn’t come back—”
“Riley will die.”
Quinn could feel their eyes on her back, but she didn’t dare turn around. What could she say, anyway? Aimee was right: Quinn had no intention of leaving Riley. Not this time. Besides, she hadn’t even found a heart to take back. This time, she wasn’t going home to be her sister’s savior. She was going home to say goodbye.
* * *
The ship rocked violently as Aimee steered
through the shoals. Quinn had inched her way to the bow and now huddled into the crook, her shoulders slamming into the hard wood every time they hit a wave. Her eyes were locked on Aimee, who had gone silent. Lines creased her face, telling the story her agelessness could not. Her story was not as simple as she had pretended, that much Quinn could see. The question was, why had she banished herself to the ocean for more than three centuries? If she ever got home, Quinn would do her best to find an answer.
“Okay, Quinn. The island is just up ahead!” Aimee shouted down.
Quinn stood and turned to face the water, but she still couldn’t see anything resembling an island. Instinctively, she leaned down and peered into the waves breaking against the ship. Beneath her, the ocean floor was sloping upward until the shoals disappeared completely. The water looked shallow enough for Quinn to swim, and in an instant she was over the ship’s edge.
“Quinn! What in Kansas are you doing?” Meelie shouted.
Quinn looked up to see Aimee turning the captain’s wheel hard. She could hear the ship straining under the sudden change of direction; Meelie and Aimee braced themselves as one side of the ship rose out of the water, their eyes locked on the masts tilting toward the surface of the ocean. Quinn swam with all her strength, desperately trying to get clear before the port side slammed back into the sea. In moments, she was dragged backward by a powerful undertow, then propelled forward by a large, rolling wave. Just as she heard the ship break the surface, she felt sand against her knees. She stood up to find that the water was only a few feet deep, hitting her square in the hips.
She trudged toward an invisible shore, but her lower half remained submerged. She was beginning to feel like she was walking in circles. Had she jumped too early? Had she managed to strand herself on a sandbar? Quinn turned to see Aimee’s ship anchored several hundred yards away, unable to get any closer to shore without damaging the ship. She squinted, but couldn’t make out the silhouettes of either woman on the deck. Then she saw a smaller boat inching toward her. Between her and the vessel, she noticed a strangely dark patch of water that seemed to be glowing. She dropped the rest of her body into the water and began to swim again. She had learned enough about the other realm to know that all good things gave off light.
Chapter Thirty
The nurses had moved Riley into a new room with a couch that converted into a bed so that Jane could sleep more comfortably. Of course she couldn’t sleep with her daughter lying a few feet away, switching between throaty sobs and angry outbursts. She pulled a chair close to Riley, resting her hand on Riley’s while she slept. Riley’s hand felt much bigger than Jane remembered. In her mind, Riley was still small enough to carry to bed, small enough to fit her whole hand inside Jane’s palm while they crossed the street. Somewhere along the way, her little girl had gotten much older than she realized, much older than a seven-year-old ever should be.
Jane tried not to stare at the machines looming over her daughter’s small body, but the neon numbers were too bright to ignore in the otherwise dark room. Riley’s oxygen levels had plateaued at eighty-five percent, low enough to require constant monitoring, but not low enough to cause significant internal damage. If the levels dipped below eighty percent, Riley would be at risk of long-term damage to her brain and heart, among other things. Though her levels had remained constant for nearly two hours, Jane was unable to look away. She was consumed by a sense of dread. The thunderstorm and Quinn’s disappearance were just too ominous to ignore; she could feel in her gut that something terrible was just around the corner.
* * *
Quinn made her way through the hospital as quietly as she could, trying not to draw attention to herself, which was difficult considering the ruddy-amber glow emanating from beneath her hoodie. She had been too frantic to worry about changing clothes, but she regretted her decision the moment her shoes hit the hospital floor. Every few steps, the rubber soles made loud, squeaking sounds, and she was leaving a slippery trail behind her as she walked. She avoided eye contact by pulling the hood down over her eyes and locking her gaze on the strikingly-white linoleum.
“Excuse me, sir. Sir?” one nurse shouted after her.
“Ma’am, can I help you find someone?” another pressed.
Quinn ignored the questions, looking up only long enough to track her progress toward Riley’s room, which she had gotten from a receptionist at the front desk. The hospital felt like a maze, which reminded her of the day Riley had been born, of all the turns and strange names that had forever etched themselves into her memory.
One more corner and Quinn found herself standing outside Riley’s room. All the lights were off, allowing Quinn to read the numbers on the monitors that surrounded her sister. On the far side, she saw her mother bent over Riley, her shoulders slowly rising and falling. She was sleeping, not crying. She had gotten back to her sister in time. She gritted her teeth, mustering every bit of resolve she had to keep from falling to her knees and sobbing right there in the hallway.
Quinn could feel the bulb pulsing against her chest exactly as she had the first time she had saved Riley. This time, she was overwhelmed by the knowledge that what she felt was, or would soon be, her sister’s heartbeat. For a moment, they were closer than they ever would be again. She closed her eyes, trying to memorize the rhythm. Her fingers tapped against her thigh as she mouthed the beats until her whole body felt stiff and began to ache. She refocused her eyes and peered into the room, checking to see that her mother was still asleep. She felt the pangs of grief at how small Jane looked curled up next to Riley. She saw in her mother’s body the same fear and helplessness that she had seen so often in her sister. Jane would never recover from losing Riley. The truth was right there in her body language. Quinn moved quickly, positioning herself on the near side of Riley, opposite her mother.
She unzipped her hoodie and eased the bulb from the makeshift cradle, concealing the radiance with Riley’s bedsheet. As slowly and deliberately as she could, Quinn moved the bulb to her sister’s chest until she had positioned the new heart above the telltale red freckle. Light swelled until the room resembled the horizon at dawn. Her eyes instinctively darted to her mother, but Jane didn’t stir. Even Riley, whose entire upper body was ablaze, didn’t move an inch. Quinn stared at her sister until all the light had left the room again, save the inescapable machines shouting in the dark. The last thing Quinn saw as she slipped into slumber were the blue numbers of the oximeter rising just above ninety percent, her hand already draped over Jane’s in her sister’s lap.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Jane yelled. “Get your hands off my daughter!”
Quinn snapped up, rubbing her eyes. The room was sunlit now, and she immediately missed the subtleness of daylight in the other realm. Had the morning always been so assaulting and harsh?
“Nurse! Get this girl away from Riley!”
Several nurses rushed into the room, pulling Quinn away from the bed.
“Mom! W-what’s wrong with you?” Quinn stammered. “Let me go. She’s my sister!” Quinn twisted against the nurses.
“Security!’ one of them called into the hallway.
“We don’t need security. Let me go! Riley is my sister. Mom! Tell them!”
“How did she get in here?” Jane fumed. “Don’t you people have protocols to protect your patients against things like this? What sort of hospital just lets strangers squat in hospital rooms?”
“What’s happening?” Riley groaned.
“Riley!” Quinn freed herself from the nurses and rushed to her sister.
“Why is everyone shouting?” she asked groggily.
“Riley, do you know this girl?” Jane interjected.
“Of course. She’s my sister. Duh. I’ve got a bad heart, Mom, not a brain problem.”
“What are you talking about?” Jane’s voice wavered now.
The nurses looked at one another, their confusion written across their faces.
“Everything okay i
n here?” Dr. Howe asked, entering the room. “I see you found Quinn,” he added, putting a hand on Quinn’s shoulder.
Jane stared at him, then Riley, then Quinn. Her eyes were hazy, and Quinn could see her jaw muscles pulsing.
“I’m sorry, Quinn. I don’t—I must have—”
“No, you’re right,” Quinn interrupted. “Sorry I disappeared on you two.”
“Ms. Willow, have any other doctors visited Riley?” Dr. Howe broke in.
“No, why?”
“Her oxygen levels are rising,” he answered, motioning to the oximeter. “If they continue to climb, her oxygen saturation will be in the normal range within a few hours. That’s twice now,” he said, turning to Riley, “you’ve battled back from what I believed, frankly, to be insurmountable. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have some sort of miracle worker looking out for you.”
Quinn caught herself fidgeting with the zipper of her hoodie and shoved her hands into her pockets. “So, she’s going to be okay?” she asked Dr. Howe, who was scouring the line graph readouts from various machines.
“She certainly seems to be rebounding, but I’m hesitant to release her just yet. We’ve seen this once before, and she took a sharp turn for the worse. We can’t risk that happening at home. With your permission, Ms. Willow, we’ll keep Riley under observation for a couple days. That should give me a chance to better understand her recovery, and we can ensure that her heart will continue to circulate the oxygenated blood properly.”
“Yes, of course,” Jane responded, her expression still perplexed.
Quinn felt like she was being studied by her mother and turned her attention to Riley. “What do you say I grab a sleeping bag and camp right here until you can come home?”
“That sounds fun,” her sister beamed. “Do you have any new stories for me?”
Quinn grinned. “I’m working on one I think you’ll love, but the ending isn’t quite ready yet.”
By now, most of the nurses had trickled out of the room, though one lingered near Dr. Howe, who was using a red pen to draw circles around various points on the graphs he had pulled from the machines. Quinn studied his face, which was creased with confusion. She wondered if he was aware that he was talking to himself, mumbling about how he could think of no logical reason for Riley’s sudden improvement. He had seen miraculous recoveries before, he said, but never twice in the same patient. He must have felt Quinn staring because he snatched up the readouts and turned sharply, then dismissed himself from the room. Jane didn’t seem to notice his departure. She was draped over Riley’s lap, cooing the way she used to when Riley was a baby. Quinn knew the sound well, and she knew that her mother would be difficult to rouse anytime soon. Riley, too, had drifted off again.
The Kaleidoscope Sisters Page 15
